satisfaction, was a step toward the universal level. The taste for
luxury, the love of war, the sway of fashion, the most superficial, as
well as the deepest passions of the human heart, co-operated to enrich
the poor and to impoverish the rich.

From the time when the exercise of the intellect became the source of
strength and of wealth, it is impossible not to consider every addition
to science, every fresh truth, and every new idea, as a germe of power
placed within the reach of the people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory,
the grace of wit, the glow of imagination, the depth of thought, and all
the gifts which are bestowed by Providence with an equal hand, turned to
the advantage of the democracy; and even when they were in the
possession of its adversaries, they still served its cause by throwing
into relief the natural greatness of man; its conquests spread,
therefore, with those of civilisation and knowledge; and literature
became an arsenal, where the poorest and weakest could always find
weapons to their hand.

In perusing the pages of our history, we shall scarcely meet with a
single great event, in the lapse of seven hundred years, which has not
turned to the advantage of equality.

The crusades and the wars of the English decimated the nobles, and
divided their possessions; the erection of communes introduced an
element of democratic liberty into the bosom of feudal monarchy; the
invention of firearms equalized the villain and the noble on the field
of battle; printing opened the same resources to the minds of all
classes; the post was organized so as to bring the same information to
the door of the poor man's cottage and to the gate of the palace; and
protestantism proclaimed that all men are alike able to find the road to